Quotes About Writing

I try to write short novels and leave details out not because I want to be minimalist, but because I think that it enables the readers' creativity and interaction with the book.

When you're a writer in Hollywood, you don't get to work with other writers. You barely get to meet other writers. We're interchangeable, disposable pieces that never really get to collaborate.

You cannot write for children They're much too complicated. You can only write books that are of interest to them.

I'm interested in characters. I love them, and I love to write them.

I'm interested in film - any aspect - acting, directing, writing.

Writing was my route to creative expression, and I needed to write about the things that interested me.

I think my best quality as a writer is the ability to craft complicated, nuanced, interesting characters.

I could always imagine more interesting places to be than where I was. And more interesting people than me being there. Eventually, this led to making up stories and writing things down.

When lockdown happened, and I didn't have that focus to sit down and write a novel, which is what I was supposed to be doing. I still found myself having to write: It was a really interesting thing to learn about myself, that this is a part of who I am, and without it I get frustrated.

One of the more interesting things I've learnt since becoming a writer is that if you like the book, you'll generally like the person. It doesn't always work in reverse - there are huge numbers of lovely people out there writing not very good books.

Writing can be fun. I think the challenge is to convey interesting things in accessible ways, and that's what I aim to do in books.

I write about what interests me. It's very dangerous when you try to satisfy an audience.

For the longest time I was brought up listening to only two genres of music, pop and rock. So in the past few years I've been trying to expand my interests because I think that you can only write to the extent of your knowledge, and if your knowledge is limited you can't write past that.

I try to write every day, preferably first thing in the morning. Of course, there are days when something happens to interfere with this ideal schedule. Then I try to find time later in the day. I usually work at home, but sometimes, for a change I'll go to a library or a cafe. And I like to read poetry before I sit down to write.

My dad was an interior design and furniture person. I started working with him for four years before my first TV writing break.

With screenplays, it's all about being as concise as possible. If you have a scene that's set in a bar, you just have to write, 'Interior: Bar.'

I've never been much of a craftsman, in an educated way. But I think just the experience of writing makes the avenues I follow a little more efficient in some ways. At the same time, when you're young, you're a little more fearless, and there's less of an internal critic.

I think screenplay is hard. I've tried that, and it felt really difficult; like, all the stuff I think I'm good at, like description and internal experience and memory, you can't do that - or, at least, I couldn't figure out a way.

I am drawn to characters so full of internal contradictions. Idi Amin was one. I loved writing him.

Internal Affairs' is my first full-length play.

The absolute base-level thing that you do as a new screenwriter is send out query letters. Literally, you just say, 'Hi, Mr. So-and-So,' and you give them a one-sentence description of one of your scripts. You send it out to a list of people you found on the Internet.

The author may not interpret. But he must tell why and how he wrote his book.

I think other people's interpretations of what I've written are a lot better than what I have, because I don't understand a lot of what I write.

A writer can write an essay, but the writer can never control how that essay is interpreted by the reader.